1. Reflect on your current assessment practices. How have you been determining what students understand and what they are able to do?
*I currently have been using quite a few informal assessments, as well as, some formal assessments, during my 7th grade student teaching experience. My informal assessments at the Middle School focused on student understanding of information being presented in class at the time. I employed the use of "thumb votes" where students would answer a question using either a thumbs up, thumbs down, or thumbs in the middle. I knew the answer I was looking for and could easily, and quickly, scan the room and take an immediate assessment of student understanding. Due to the fact that this informal assessment was so quick, and did not require any materials except for a thumb, that I was sure all my students had, I used this practice several times during each class period. Formal assessments are usually based around a short quiz at the end of every week. I found that these quizzes were more useful than a large cumulative test, because I had an idea of what specific topics students understood and I could easily reemphasize topics from questions that were frequently missed. Using quizzes that were short and sweet also cut down on student anxiety, because not only were they focusing on less information, but the format of a one paged quiz vs. a multi-paged test was more appealing, and calming to students overall.
2. Describe the concept(s) that you are trying to assess in these assignments. Include a link to the appropriate GSE(s) on RIScienceTeachers. Be sure to include in your description your definition, examples of what it is, why students have difficulty with this concept, and why it is important that you teach this topic
*Informal Assessment: Radiometer Inquiry Lab
-GSE covered:PS2(Students use data to draw conclusions about how heat can be transferred)
-Concepts being assessed:
*Heat Transfer
*Radiation
*The scientific process
*Researchable vs. Experimental Questioning
*Procedure Writing
*Experimental Design
*Data Collection techniques
*Conclusion Writing
Common misconceptions:
Data will prove or disprove a hypothesis, rather than support or reject.
Radiation (heat transfer) refers to radioactivity as in a radioactive element.
Students equate radiation to free electrons, such as in a radioactive element.
Why teach about heat transfer?
Students will continue on to 8th grade and complete a chemistry and catastrophic events units. In their chemistry unit they will further build upon their knowledge of heat transfer by examining chemical reactions, and phase changes. It is imperative that students understand how energy travels as heat in order to avoid misconceptions in chemistry. Catastrophic events details weather patterns, and natural disasters which commonly rely heavily on the understanding that the sun gives off energy in the form of radiation, and that this energy can later be converted into other forms of energy.
*Formal Assessment: Where the Living Things Are Quiz
-GSE covered: LS1 (All living things have identifiable structures and characteristics that allow for survival)
-Concepts being assessed:
7 Characteristics of living organisms
Observation vs. Inference
Needs a habitat meets for an organism
Autotrophic and heterotrophic organisms
Homeostasis
Common misconceptions:
An organism is alive only if breathing oxygen.
Plants are not alive because they do not move, and do not eat. (Stationary organisms are not alive)
Plants are only alive because they are green.
A habitat is solely where an organism lives.
Observation and inference are the same thing.
Homeostasis applies only to keeping a stable internal temperature (warm blooded animals).
Why teach about characteristics of life, observations and habitats?
Students were beginning a unit entitled organisms and it was essential that a student have an accurate idea of how an organism is scientifically defined. Throughout this unit students were responsible for observing several different types of organisms, and recording their thoughts. It was important for students to understand that observations are based only on what they are able to detect with their 5 senses, and not what they think. Their thoughts on the organism being observed were also commonly documented, and it was important that students apply their background knowledge when making inferences. An inference students were often asked to make was where they thought the organism lived, what was the organisms habitat. In order for students to make an educated inference they must first understand that there are other clues to what an organism's habitat may be than just where do they think it lives, like what does it eat, and what climate would we find it living in.
3. (and 7) Describe an informal assessment that you selected, modified, or designed to address this concept. Summarize the instructions you gave your students and Include a link to the informal assessment here as well. The radiometer lab was a cookie cutter lab taken from a textbook, that Cole teachers have adapted and modified over the years to be much more inquiry-esque.
This assessment spanned many days and was developed to allow students to practice questioning, and designing an experiment, as well as collecting data, and developing conclusions.
Day 1: Students were given a radiometer and a flashlight and allowed to experiment, using the flashlight different ways to see how it would effect the radiometer. Students were asked to generate 2 lists of questions. One list would be of researchable questions, whose answers they could easily look up online, and the other list would be questions whose answers could be gathered via a simple experiment.
Day 2: Students were introduced to a large list of other equipment they could chose to use in their experiments, and in groups of four, were asked to pick their favorite experimental question from the list they generated and design a possible experiment using the materials available.
Day 3: Students watched a demonstration and were given example directions about how to write a scientific procedure with accurate amounts of detail. Students worked on their procedures, and created data tables for their experiment.
Day 4: Students enacted their experiments and collected data.
Day 5: Class focused on heat transfer information, radiation, convection, and conduction. Students were asked to use their newly acquired information to interpret their results and write a conclusion.
Day 6: Students are instructed on how to write a proper conclusion, including their ending comments backed by evidence from the data set. Conclusion was to be written in "hamburger format" which includes an intro sentence, details, and a concluding sentence.
4. (and 8) Create a formal assessment. Describe this assessment, including concepts, types of items, and how it was assessed. Include a link to a copy of the assessment here as well.
Where the Living Things Are Quiz (and modified version)
-Concepts being assessed:
7 Characteristics of living organisms
Observation vs. Inference
Needs a habitat meets for an organism
Autotrophic and heterotrophic organisms
Homeostasis
-Types of quiz items: Total of 25 points
6 Multiple choice questions- 2 points each
2 True or False questions- 1point each
3 Observations of an object- 2 points each ( observations should be accurate, and use information gathered through senses only)
Short answer question with a conclusion and supporting evidence- 5 points (conclusion if object is alive or not (1 pt), supported by characteristics of life (3 pts.), concluding sentence (1 pt) )
5. Develop the evaluation criteria (or key) for your formal assessment or link it here.
6. Develop the evaluation criteria (or key) for your informal assessment or link it here. This description should include the assessment's features, how it addresses different depths of knowledge, as well as an explanation of how it addresses a scientific practice related to inquiry.
-Student receive a classwork and homework grade for this assignment.
-Classwork: Out of 30 points.
Self Evaluation Day 1: 10 pts.
Self Evaluation Day 2: 10 pts.
Written Procedure: 10 pts. ( Procedure must include a set-up diagram, specific instructions, including gather materials and materials list, and a data table. Should be written in concise and specific steps that can be easily followed.)
-Homework: Out of 10 points.
Written Conclusion: 10 pts. (Conclusion must cite group's final thoughts, and back those thoughts with data from the experiment. Should be in "hamburger format" with an introduction sentence, details, and a concluding sentence. Conclusion should also address any possible sources of error, and what the students would do differently if they could preform the experiment again.)
7. & 8. - Already addressed above.
9. For your informal assessment, upload scans of the work of three or four students. The work of each student should be on a different page. At the bottom of each students' page, you should describe the level of student understanding, e.g. high, average, or low, and describe how this is indicated in their answers. An example of how to do this is here. Note: Remember to name the pages you create carefully, e.g. "Smith S10 - High Performing" instead of "High-Performing."
10 For you formal assessment, describe how you think it addressed the concepts you were trying to assess? How did you modify the assessment to address learning differences or special needs? The formal assessment took into account all of the different concepts I was trying to address. Understanding of the characteristics of life were assessed using multiple choice, true and false as well as, a reflective short answer question. This provided students will multiple avenues in expressing their understanding, there was bound to be a question format that was their strong suit. Habitat and auto/heterotroph information was assessed on a purely objective level using multiple choice and true/false questioning. This was appropriate for this concept because it was mainly a review of vocabulary terms that needed to be memorized and then applied to situations such as the "bear in a cave." The understanding of observation vs. inference was assessed through the students' ability to make observations of an actual object. This was an effective way to see if students were still struggling with the difference between observation and inference, if the student made mostly good observations their understanding was at a higher level than a student who was still mixing in some inferences.
A modified version of the quiz was provided for students with accommodations. This quiz was modified for students with attention, as well as, reading difficulties. The font was made larger and more space was added between each possible answer. A distracting answer was also removed from the multiple choice questions, leaving the students taking the modified version with only 3 choices. Students also left the room to take the modified quiz, and were granted extra time.
III. Analysis / Reflection
11. Use both the informal and formal assessments to describe what you learned about what your students understand about these concepts. Use specific examples from both the informal and formal assessment to illustrate your points. What can your students do now that they could not before, and what do they still need to learn?
I learned that the scientific process seems to be ingrained within our students but as a lock-step "scientific method." During the informal inquiry task students were constantly concerned about following the "scientific method" and were even more disappointed to see that their hypothesis was not supported by their experiment. It took some convincing and the use of some real life examples of scientific research to convince my students that science does not follow a mold of any sort. If a team of scientists had been presented with the same situation they would preform an entire series of experiments not just the one that the students had an opportunity to do in class...it is an ongoing process. Students were more apt to believe me and felt more comfortable with their results after seeing true scientific research at work.
An interesting observation. One characteristic of experimentation is making a series of refined tests. Did your students have a chance to do this? Would this be an element that you might add to address students' misconceptions about there being a linear scientific method?
During the formal assessment I realized that students often struggled with the idea of non-living vs. dead. Prior to the quiz students had compared a rock to a brown leaf and some determined that the leaf was non-living, where truly the leaf was a living thing that was now dead. It took several more examples for students to finally walk away with the fact that all living things have cells and always will, even when they are dead, whereas a non-living thing never had cells and never well. I believe that the formal assessment shows that students were able to grasp this tricky topic due to the fact that the most students provided correct responses to questions 4 and 7 on the quiz.
12. OMIT
13. For your formal assessment only, select one student characteristic, e.g. ability, gender, age, etc) and compare the relative performance of each group. Hint: Use box and whiskers plots to compare the two groups. What do you conclude from this comparison? Why?
Analysis of Formal Assessment Based on Ability:
*The overall average for the formal assessment in all classes was a 90 %. Although my classes were not technically tracked, I did have several classes that just so happened to be grouped based on their ability. For this assessment my high performing class had the highest average as usual, 95%, so I wanted to compare this average with the averages of typically lower performing students. Many student in my classes had reading disabilities, these students were spread between 2 classes, so as the resource teacher or an aid could assist them. Students with severe reading disabilities were given the modified version of the assessment, and were removed from the room, with the resource teacher to take the quiz. These students were also granted more time to complete the assessment if necessary, based on their IEP accomodations. The overall average for students taking a modified assessment was 92%.
I was very pleased with this average on the modified assessments. I felt that if students were able to achieve to an above average level on the quiz then the modifications made were useful and well received. I was even more pleased with this assessment due to the fact that the average on modified quizes was almost at the level of my highest achieving class, proving to me that students taking the modified version, knew the content almost as well as the highest performers.
14. Describe any ways in which you involved students in self-assessment. How did you communicate what you learned from your informal and formal assessments to your students? What did they do with this information?
During the informal assessment students were asked to self-assess after 2 class periods of time. At the end of the period students discussed, in their group of 4, how well they managed their time, including time spent on task, and if they completed all they were asked to complete that day. Students were very honest when filling out these sheets and did not just automatically give their group the highest marks. After each of these class periods I collected these sheets and averaged or looked for overall trends that the groups were expressing. I reported my findings to the class the next day and asked the students to provide ways in which they thought they could score higher in the low scoring categories during this class period. Each group then wrote 3 goals, and at the end of the period assessed themselves again according to if these goals were obtained.
I liked your rubric for self assessing students' groupwork.
15: Most Important: Compare your objectives for student learning (both in terms of science concepts and practices) to the student learning you observed. What did you learn about your teaching based on the student performances? What will you do differently next time? Why would you make these changes? What, if anything, will you do to improve the assessment instruments?
I believe that during the informal assessment students met most of my overall objectives. The one objective I feel that they did not quite meet was writing a meaningful conclusion. The conclusion could have been shortsighted by students because they might have felt rushed, having only a couple of days to complete their experiment, analyze data and finally write a conclusion. It was a tough period of time during the year because students were expected to complete this project and in order to fit in their mid-year exam including days to review for the exam. I think that students could have used some practice with conclusion writing prior to writing the conclusion. I also think it would have been helpful if I had first collected rough drafts, and turned them back to the students with helpful comments, allowing them to make corrections and glance over the paragraph once again.
Though your conclusion writing supports are good, you might want read more on scaffolding and middle school students' scientific explanations. The article at the bottom of this page is an excellent resource.
The formal assessment went very well and all students were able to meet the objectives for the characteristics of life unit. I feel that I really enforced the ideas in this unit using a multitude of methods, including several labs, reading, and writing. By using several different mediums to push the same ideas a diverse array of learners were able to grasp the ideas, and achieve the goals of the lesson with ease.
Formal and Informal Assessment of Student Learning
Name: Sarah Jakob (7th grade science units)
I. Assignment Description/Requirements
II. Preparation / Development
1. Reflect on your current assessment practices. How have you been determining what students understand and what they are able to do?
*I currently have been using quite a few informal assessments, as well as, some formal assessments, during my 7th grade student teaching experience. My informal assessments at the Middle School focused on student understanding of information being presented in class at the time. I employed the use of "thumb votes" where students would answer a question using either a thumbs up, thumbs down, or thumbs in the middle. I knew the answer I was looking for and could easily, and quickly, scan the room and take an immediate assessment of student understanding. Due to the fact that this informal assessment was so quick, and did not require any materials except for a thumb, that I was sure all my students had, I used this practice several times during each class period. Formal assessments are usually based around a short quiz at the end of every week. I found that these quizzes were more useful than a large cumulative test, because I had an idea of what specific topics students understood and I could easily reemphasize topics from questions that were frequently missed. Using quizzes that were short and sweet also cut down on student anxiety, because not only were they focusing on less information, but the format of a one paged quiz vs. a multi-paged test was more appealing, and calming to students overall.
2. Describe the concept(s) that you are trying to assess in these assignments. Include a link to the appropriate GSE(s) on RIScienceTeachers. Be sure to include in your description your definition, examples of what it is, why students have difficulty with this concept, and why it is important that you teach this topic
3. (and 7) Describe an informal assessment that you selected, modified, or designed to address this concept. Summarize the instructions you gave your students and Include a link to the informal assessment here as well.
The radiometer lab was a cookie cutter lab taken from a textbook, that Cole teachers have adapted and modified over the years to be much more inquiry-esque.
This assessment spanned many days and was developed to allow students to practice questioning, and designing an experiment, as well as collecting data, and developing conclusions.
Day 1: Students were given a radiometer and a flashlight and allowed to experiment, using the flashlight different ways to see how it would effect the radiometer. Students were asked to generate 2 lists of questions. One list would be of researchable questions, whose answers they could easily look up online, and the other list would be questions whose answers could be gathered via a simple experiment.
Day 2: Students were introduced to a large list of other equipment they could chose to use in their experiments, and in groups of four, were asked to pick their favorite experimental question from the list they generated and design a possible experiment using the materials available.
Day 3: Students watched a demonstration and were given example directions about how to write a scientific procedure with accurate amounts of detail. Students worked on their procedures, and created data tables for their experiment.
Day 4: Students enacted their experiments and collected data.
Day 5: Class focused on heat transfer information, radiation, convection, and conduction. Students were asked to use their newly acquired information to interpret their results and write a conclusion.
Day 6: Students are instructed on how to write a proper conclusion, including their ending comments backed by evidence from the data set. Conclusion was to be written in "hamburger format" which includes an intro sentence, details, and a concluding sentence.
4. (and 8) Create a formal assessment. Describe this assessment, including concepts, types of items, and how it was assessed. Include a link to a copy of the assessment here as well.
Where the Living Things Are Quiz (and modified version)
-Concepts being assessed:
- 7 Characteristics of living organisms
- Observation vs. Inference
- Needs a habitat meets for an organism
- Autotrophic and heterotrophic organisms
- Homeostasis
-Types of quiz items: Total of 25 points5. Develop the evaluation criteria (or key) for your formal assessment or link it here.
6. Develop the evaluation criteria (or key) for your informal assessment or link it here. This description should include the assessment's features, how it addresses different depths of knowledge, as well as an explanation of how it addresses a scientific practice related to inquiry.
-Student receive a classwork and homework grade for this assignment.
-Classwork: Out of 30 points.
- Self Evaluation Day 1: 10 pts.
- Self Evaluation Day 2: 10 pts.
- Written Procedure: 10 pts. ( Procedure must include a set-up diagram, specific instructions, including gather materials and materials list, and a data table. Should be written in concise and specific steps that can be easily followed.)
-Homework: Out of 10 points.7. & 8. - Already addressed above.
9. For your informal assessment, upload scans of the work of three or four students. The work of each student should be on a different page. At the bottom of each students' page, you should describe the level of student understanding, e.g. high, average, or low, and describe how this is indicated in their answers. An example of how to do this is here. Note: Remember to name the pages you create carefully, e.g. "Smith S10 - High Performing" instead of "High-Performing."
Informal Assessment Student Work- SJakob
10 For you formal assessment, describe how you think it addressed the concepts you were trying to assess? How did you modify the assessment to address learning differences or special needs?
The formal assessment took into account all of the different concepts I was trying to address. Understanding of the characteristics of life were assessed using multiple choice, true and false as well as, a reflective short answer question. This provided students will multiple avenues in expressing their understanding, there was bound to be a question format that was their strong suit. Habitat and auto/heterotroph information was assessed on a purely objective level using multiple choice and true/false questioning. This was appropriate for this concept because it was mainly a review of vocabulary terms that needed to be memorized and then applied to situations such as the "bear in a cave." The understanding of observation vs. inference was assessed through the students' ability to make observations of an actual object. This was an effective way to see if students were still struggling with the difference between observation and inference, if the student made mostly good observations their understanding was at a higher level than a student who was still mixing in some inferences.
A modified version of the quiz was provided for students with accommodations. This quiz was modified for students with attention, as well as, reading difficulties. The font was made larger and more space was added between each possible answer. A distracting answer was also removed from the multiple choice questions, leaving the students taking the modified version with only 3 choices. Students also left the room to take the modified quiz, and were granted extra time.
III. Analysis / Reflection
11. Use both the informal and formal assessments to describe what you learned about what your students understand about these concepts. Use specific examples from both the informal and formal assessment to illustrate your points. What can your students do now that they could not before, and what do they still need to learn?
I learned that the scientific process seems to be ingrained within our students but as a lock-step "scientific method." During the informal inquiry task students were constantly concerned about following the "scientific method" and were even more disappointed to see that their hypothesis was not supported by their experiment. It took some convincing and the use of some real life examples of scientific research to convince my students that science does not follow a mold of any sort. If a team of scientists had been presented with the same situation they would preform an entire series of experiments not just the one that the students had an opportunity to do in class...it is an ongoing process. Students were more apt to believe me and felt more comfortable with their results after seeing true scientific research at work.
An interesting observation. One characteristic of experimentation is making a series of refined tests. Did your students have a chance to do this? Would this be an element that you might add to address students' misconceptions about there being a linear scientific method?
During the formal assessment I realized that students often struggled with the idea of non-living vs. dead. Prior to the quiz students had compared a rock to a brown leaf and some determined that the leaf was non-living, where truly the leaf was a living thing that was now dead. It took several more examples for students to finally walk away with the fact that all living things have cells and always will, even when they are dead, whereas a non-living thing never had cells and never well. I believe that the formal assessment shows that students were able to grasp this tricky topic due to the fact that the most students provided correct responses to questions 4 and 7 on the quiz.
12. OMIT
13. For your formal assessment only, select one student characteristic, e.g. ability, gender, age, etc) and compare the relative performance of each group. Hint: Use box and whiskers plots to compare the two groups. What do you conclude from this comparison? Why?
Analysis of Formal Assessment Based on Ability:
*The overall average for the formal assessment in all classes was a 90 %. Although my classes were not technically tracked, I did have several classes that just so happened to be grouped based on their ability. For this assessment my high performing class had the highest average as usual, 95%, so I wanted to compare this average with the averages of typically lower performing students. Many student in my classes had reading disabilities, these students were spread between 2 classes, so as the resource teacher or an aid could assist them. Students with severe reading disabilities were given the modified version of the assessment, and were removed from the room, with the resource teacher to take the quiz. These students were also granted more time to complete the assessment if necessary, based on their IEP accomodations. The overall average for students taking a modified assessment was 92%.
I was very pleased with this average on the modified assessments. I felt that if students were able to achieve to an above average level on the quiz then the modifications made were useful and well received. I was even more pleased with this assessment due to the fact that the average on modified quizes was almost at the level of my highest achieving class, proving to me that students taking the modified version, knew the content almost as well as the highest performers.
14. Describe any ways in which you involved students in self-assessment. How did you communicate what you learned from your informal and formal assessments to your students? What did they do with this information?
During the informal assessment students were asked to self-assess after 2 class periods of time. At the end of the period students discussed, in their group of 4, how well they managed their time, including time spent on task, and if they completed all they were asked to complete that day. Students were very honest when filling out these sheets and did not just automatically give their group the highest marks. After each of these class periods I collected these sheets and averaged or looked for overall trends that the groups were expressing. I reported my findings to the class the next day and asked the students to provide ways in which they thought they could score higher in the low scoring categories during this class period. Each group then wrote 3 goals, and at the end of the period assessed themselves again according to if these goals were obtained.
I liked your rubric for self assessing students' groupwork.
15: Most Important: Compare your objectives for student learning (both in terms of science concepts and practices) to the student learning you observed. What did you learn about your teaching based on the student performances? What will you do differently next time? Why would you make these changes? What, if anything, will you do to improve the assessment instruments?
I believe that during the informal assessment students met most of my overall objectives. The one objective I feel that they did not quite meet was writing a meaningful conclusion. The conclusion could have been shortsighted by students because they might have felt rushed, having only a couple of days to complete their experiment, analyze data and finally write a conclusion. It was a tough period of time during the year because students were expected to complete this project and in order to fit in their mid-year exam including days to review for the exam. I think that students could have used some practice with conclusion writing prior to writing the conclusion. I also think it would have been helpful if I had first collected rough drafts, and turned them back to the students with helpful comments, allowing them to make corrections and glance over the paragraph once again.
Though your conclusion writing supports are good, you might want read more on scaffolding and middle school students' scientific explanations. The article at the bottom of this page is an excellent resource.
The formal assessment went very well and all students were able to meet the objectives for the characteristics of life unit. I feel that I really enforced the ideas in this unit using a multitude of methods, including several labs, reading, and writing. By using several different mediums to push the same ideas a diverse array of learners were able to grasp the ideas, and achieve the goals of the lesson with ease.